For the Birds
by Mockster
Summary: I know Kurt-at-Dalton stories are swiftly approaching dime-a-dozen status.  But here's mine.  Trouble in paradise, of course.  I've got a list of songs that will get performed this 'episode'.  In this chapter:  a Free as a Bird/Blackbird Beatles Mash-Up.
1. Chapter 1

For the Birds

pt. 1

"... dont la notion proprement romaine de patria potestas permet de saisir toute la mesure..." The swift tick-tick-tick of chalk over the blackboard seemed to Kurt to be keeping measure to a song over which his new Dalton Academy French teacher, Mlle. Tervens, was singing in fleeting recitative. It was such a dreamy language, and Mlle. Tervens' voice was unbearably musical. It echoed off of the rich polished-wooden finishings of the classroom and sparked a squirming squiggle of wriggling giddiness deep in his core. No interruptions, no spitballs. An unutterably refined teacher and a classroom full of cultured and interested pupils. A broad smile strained the very edges of his lips and he was all but basking in the moment, letting the gorgeous language wrap him up in its arms.

L'aristocrate romain se definissait par le refus de tout comportement feminin et de toute soumission; la femme symbolisait la legerete , la passion tandis que l'homme representait la vertu et la... rigueur... M. Hummel?"

The contented smile on his face lingered behind eve as his eyes came back into focus, his mind returning from the cozy little corner in which it had curled itself before, blinking a few times, "Huh?" he answered, eyes flitting left and then right. This would be the point, of course, back at McKinley, where the more attentive members of the class would pause to take a snicker at the one called out for daydreaming or head-desking. In fact, more often than not, it was Kurt himself with the smug sort of sneer on his face, tossing a disdainful glance back at some lummox in the back of the room. It was his right, after all- wasn't it? They tormented him in the corridors; he was allowed to get some of his own back in the classroom. But here, in Mlle. Tervens' classroom, no such snickering ensued. Nobody even turned around. Funnily enough, he found himself wishing that they would- maybe then he wouldn't feel so strange a pang of guilt for having indulged in that sort of behavior in his past life. His cheeks rosied up, and Mlle. Tervens was going on:

"La femme symbolisait..." she prompted.

Kurt's mouth opened sort of unevenly, his voice stuck in his throat, unable even to answer that he hadn't got a clue what she was on about. He mutely shook his head. By the time that Blaine, up in the front row, got so concerned as to turn around and steal a glance back at the newest member of the Warblers, Mlle. Tervens had taken mercy on the student and, with a quick remark that Kurt should see her after class, which, fortunately for him, he could understand, she returned to her lecture.

It was five minutes later when Kurt noticed that the answer he'd been prompted for was WRITTEN ON THE BOARD. He bit his lip down over a groan, and blushed anew, and generally hoped for a hole to open up in the ground in which he could hide. He put his heade down on his desk for a brief moment in sheer despair before he shot straight upward again and strove to catch up with what was going on.

Satchel at his side at the end of class, Kurt filed up with the rest of the students in orderly procession out of their rows of desks, and then stepped forward to wait by the board. Blaine had lingered by the American flag in the fore corner of the room, himself, looking back to Kurt as he peeled out of the line. "You okay, Kurt?" he asked him.

Kurt tipped his chin aloft and, with a flare of his nostrils, took a breath that lifted him slightly onto the balls of his feet, bucking himself up enough to give a sliver of a nod and answer, "I'm fine. Just. A headache." Lies.

Blaine returned the sentiment with a tight-lipped smile mellowed by the warmth in his eyes. "Okay. See you at practice. I'll let the guys know you'll be a little late."

"Thanks," came the reply, at once terse and heartfelt. He'd been late to a Warblers rehearsal without an excuse once before and had been given a warning rather more strict than he deemed entirely necessary. Blaine nodded once more, and stepped gingerly back into the line heading out the door. Soon Kurt was alone with Mlle. Tervens.

"M. Hummel," she began, and his heart cringed. She was going to be so mad at him. He turned to look at his teacher, and was surprised to see a look of compassionate concern mingled with platonic affection, plain as day, on her face. "You don't need to be embarrassed. We all know the public schools are doing their best, but- the level of instruction you received there was hardly adequate for Dalton standards. That's not your fault. You're a very promising student, but we need to get you where you need to be. I know at McKinley you were required to take a language, and might have chosen French for any number of reasons. But if it's not where your heart's calling you, maybe you would be better off starting over in another language," she suggested, brows raised in a helpful, motherly expression. What? If that's not where his heart's calling him? He loved French. It was his favorite class at McKinley.

She must have seen the unrest in his face: "You would be on equal footing with the starting students," she continued, "And you wouldn't pick up any of the bad habits my... colleagues in the public sector must unfortunately rely upon to reach a wider student base. You might consider Latin, for example," she went on, a note of cheer in her voice. "It's a noble Dalton tradition and provides excellent exercises in mental discipline which will no doubt bolster your grades in other classes."

She continued to look over his features. She could plainly see that this talk was hurting him. "... Or." Or what? That was going to have been her only suggestion, having taken a few weeks to look over his work and level of aptitude. "You could see if you can test into the second half of French I."

That broke the silence. An indigant, "See-?" burst forth from the dam, before he calmed himself down. "I... was in French III at McKinley." Surely she wouldn't have suggested going into French I if she had -known- that.

"I know." Or... not. "M. Hummel, just... take the weekend to think about it. You don't need to make a decision now. But I'm afraid a decision will have to be made, one way or the other. I can't in good conscience keep you here."

"I..." Kurt was shaking his head again. Start a new language, or go back to French I. IF he could test into it. What would the Warblers think? What would BLAINE think? "... okay. I'll, um. Think about it." He forced a smile to flicker past his lips before he turned away and picked up speed as he headed to and out the door. 


	2. Chapter 2

My first effort at actually writing a mash-up. Hopefully the formatting is not too baffling.

For the Birds

pt. 2

The Warblers were already mid-rehearsal when Kurt slipped silently into their choir room. Daniel had one hand lifted: "Free..." he sang, and, at a gesture from him, six other members of the group echoed him a beat into the word:

*Free...*

A moment later, as the first seven choir members' voiced blended into a single yearning note, Blaine stepped forward with another five at his back, chiming in with a tripping, flitting:

*Blackbird singing in the dead of night...*

To patter soothingly beneath the soaring:

*... as a bird...*

from the first group.

The arrangement was enough to make Kurt stop in his tracks by the door, heart in his throat. Beatles mash-up. Oh my god.

And then, as soon as it began, it was over, and Kyle was pushing away from the desk at the fore of the practice space, "No. No, guys, stop," he nearly snapped, taking up the rubber-tipped pointer and walking around to the whiteboard. "NOT 'Free,' two, three, four, THEN the blackbird. Blackbird on /three./ On /three/," he stressed, "Or else it'll muddle up the primary arrangement and we'll turn the whole thing into a fiasco. If we're going to go with this 'mash-up' trend-" and his voice couldn't have sounded more disdainful there if it tried, "We're at least going to do it -right.- Over, again," he began, then, spokking Kurt. "Kurt. Nice of you to join us," he nearly sneered, then tipped his chin up, gesturing brusquely toward Blaine, "You're in Blaine's group. Blaine, I'll give you five minutes to catch him up on the arrangement. The -correct- arrangement," he specified. "I know it's easier to wait for a vocal cue, but nothing good ever came easy, did it?" he asked, rhetorically. "Daniel," he turned to the other group, "I need you to tighten up your group's harmony. It needs to be one note from the time they join you. You can't be wavering all over the place for a beat trying to find one another. Get it /right/."

Kurt, his mouth open just a little bit, looked across the room to Blaine as he made his way dimly in that direction. Was he the only one on whom the irony was not lost of behaving in such a dictatorial fashion over a production of the Beatles' Free as a Bird? Blaine's face, however, was all business, and he made a gesture that Kurt should hurry up. Kurt hurried.

"Everything okay with Mademoiselle Tervens?" he did, however, take the time to ask, even as he was laying out the modified sheet music.

Kurt looked from Blaine to a couple of the other boys huddled around. "... Yeah. Fine," he lied, underneath a pallid mask of frost chill.

"Lucky," Wes murmurred across the piano. "Cicero's kicking my ass this semester. I'm going to have to do an extra credit assignment over Christmas holiday to kick my grade up to an A when I get back."

A few expressions of sympathy were forthcoming, but Kurt couldn't keep quiet after that. "An extra credit assignment to put your grade up over a B? You're a litttle bit of a workaholic, aren't you, Wes?" he tried to joke. Instead of the laughs he expected, however, Kurt was rewarded by a set of rather blank stares.

"... Nnno," Wes started up again. "But when we get back from break we're going to have our academic elegibility forms go out," he explained, infuriatingly slowly, as if he suddenly wasn't sure that Kurt spoke English.

"Academic elegibility?" Kurt wondered, looking around the circle of eyes. Nobody said anything for a long moment, before Blaine took up the burden of the conversation.

"Dalton Academy's primary goal is academic excellence for its students. And so it only lets those students who are already excelling academically participate in extracurriculars."

"So... what, keep a B average?" Kurt asked, hesitantly.

"... A. An A average," Blaine answered him.

"... Oh."

What else was there to say? Even if Kurt were getting A marks in all his other classes (which he wasn't, by the by; A level work at McKinley was barely B/C cusp level work here at Dalton), it would scarcely balance out his failing grades in French.

"Oh." He said, again.

And they got back to their arrangement.

There were the Warblers, like geese in proper formation, on the Dalton auditorium stage, singing to an empty audience. Pristine in their show apparel - matching suits with narrow ties evocative of the period, hands kept neatly at their sides as their voices swelled to fill the empty air. Eyes bright, eyes ahead, except for one set of eyes that couldn't help but stray to his section leader. Home. Home and dry. Fly away, Blackbird. Blackbird... fly.

Free (Blackbird, singing in the dead of night,)  
As a bird (Take these broken wings, and learn to fly,)

It's the next best thing (all)  
to (your)  
be (life)

Free as a bird (Free as a bird)

Home (Blackbird, singing in the dead of night,)  
Home and dry (Take these broken wings, and learn to fly,)

Like a homing bird (all)  
I (your)  
fly. (life.)

Like a bird, on wings. (like a bird, on wings)

Whatever happened to (You were only waiting)  
The life that we once knew? (for this moment to arise)  
Can we really live (you were only waiting)  
without each other? (for this moment to arise)

Where did we lose the touch (You were only waiting)  
That seemed to mean so much? (for this moment to be free)  
It always made me feel... (You were only waiting)  
so... (For this moment to be)

Free (Free)  
As a bird (As a bird.)

It's the next best thing (It's the next best thing)  
to (to)  
be (be)

Free as a bird (Free as a bird)

Home (Blackbird, singing in the dead of night)  
Home and dry (Take these sunken eyes, and learn to see)

Like a homing bird (all)  
I (your)  
fly. (life.)

Like a bird, on wings. (Like a bird, on - Blackbird, fly.)

Whatever happened to (Blackbird, fly.)  
the life that we once knew? (Blackbird, fly.)  
It always made me feel (You were only waiting)  
so (For this moment to be)  
free (free)

Free (Blackbird, singing in the dead of night)  
as a bird. (Take these broken wings, and learn to fly.)  
It's the next best thing, to be (it's the next best thing to be)  
Free as a bird. (Free as a a- Blackbird, fly.)  
Free as a bird. (Blackbird, fly.)  
Free as a bird. (Blackbird, fly.)  
Into the light (Into the light)  
Of a dark black night. (Of a dark black night.)

And in unison, the entire crew bent double in the trademark Beatles bow. And... lights. 


End file.
